


time goes quicker (between the two of us)

by queen_ve



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Keyleth-centric (Critical Role), Post-Campaign 1 (Critical Role), and also Campaign 2 i guess, basically my love letter to keyleth's character, slight angst but lots of healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29524998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ve/pseuds/queen_ve
Summary: a study in identity and reunions.
Relationships: Keyleth & Vilya | Viridian
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	time goes quicker (between the two of us)

**Author's Note:**

> i realize this is many months late, but i fucked around listening to florence + the machine and cried over keyleth's character arc for the hundredth time. here's the result. 
> 
> (fair warning, i'm not even remotely caught up on c2 so there may be minor inconsistences with canon.)
> 
> title from "What the Water Gave Me" by f+tm

Keyleth knows names.

They swirl around her constantly, clinging to her mantle, settling on her shoulders with varying weights and degrees of comfort.  (Some, of course, are more dear than others; those are the ones she clings to when the tides of time rush in to sweep her out to sea.) 

Keyleth of the Air Ashari.

_ (She’s young, she’s five and her mother is leaving, she’s twelve and her mother’s not coming back, she seventeen and gangly and awkward and she tries to be brave for her father, for herself, because she’s a princess and she needs to be a leader but she’s still so young and she doesn’t know how.) _

Minxie.

_ (Laughter, there’s so much laughter these days, camaraderie forged in the danger and mystery and adventure, and she’s still not sure but she’s starting to understand that the world is unbearably frustrating and harsh but still worth saving, oh, there are so many people worth saving and she and her friends have the power to do something about it.) _

The Voice of the Tempest.

_ (Power surging through her veins, her staff in her hand as her voice rings out and it feels right, it feels right for the first time in her life as she stands in front of her people, her family, her tribe, and she loves them, all of them, so fiercely and she’s scared, gods, she’s terrified, but she finally fits in her own skin.) _

Kiki.

_ (When did the time run out, how did the moments slip away without her noticing like grains of sand sifting through her fingers, what is she supposed to do now that they’ve all gone off to live and she’s alone again, she’s so unbearably alone and some days the feathers braided in her hair help and some days she wants to tear them out because maybe then she’ll stop crying every time they drift past her face, but she never does because the only thing, the only thing that could possibly be worse than being so alone is forgetting.) _

Keyleth knows how to be so many different things. 

She knows how to be a chieftess, a sister, a bird, a dragon, a hero. Sometimes, though, she forgets how to be herself. How to be just Keyleth. Keyleth, who wants to save everyone even though everyone tells her it’s impossible. Keyleth, who refuses to let anyone else take responsibility for her mistakes. Keyleth, who stares down a green dragon despite being afraid of the world and herself. 

The day the Sun Tree in Zephrah’s center splits open is so ordinary. There is no warning, no sign that Keyleth’s world is about to be completely rearranged. There simply comes the sound of warping bark and a breeze of magic so familiar and yet not quite the same. Keyleth turns to look, bracing herself for something, anything except the truth of what her eyes see. 

The woman who steps through the portal locks eyes with her and Keyleth feels herself gasp. 

A tall, lean figure silhouetted by the green light at her back. Tanned skin and dark hair and a wooden leg. 

And those eyes—

Those eyes are her eyes. 

Faster than she thought possible, forty-year-old memories are dredged up and she’s flying towards the woman (her mother, that’s her mother) and throwing her arms around  her. The older woman smells like saltwater, which is new, but underneath lingers the golden scent of sun and freshly turned soil. Keyleth buries her face in her mother’s sun bleached hair and lets herself ache like she hasn’t since she was a child who had just realized what loss is. 

“Keyleth?” Her mother’s voice is choked and watery but so full of joy.

“It’s me, Mom,” she sobs. “It’s me.”

Her mother gently pulls back and cups Keyleth’s face in her calloused hands, stroking a thumb over her freckled cheekbone.  “You’re so grown up,” she says softly, wonder in her voice. Tears pool in the corners of her creased eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for it.” 

A thousand emotions reel though Keyleth’s mind. Shock. Elation. Bitterness. Uncertainty. Warmth. 

Relief wins out. 

“How are you here now?” she asks, voice almost desperate. She’s still trying to convince herself it’s not a mirage, some dream that will dissipate the second she blinks away sleep. 

Her mother makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a weary sigh. “It’s a very long story. But in short… I lost my memory for a while after washing up on an island in Wildemount. And a few days ago, a rather… odd but earnest group of people helped me regain it.”

The familiarity of that description smacks her upside the head. Not just in the sense that Vox Machina had often matched it, but in that she had heard an almost identical phrase used by Allura over dinner a month ago. 

Keyleth tries to wrap her mind around the bizarreness of this whole day through the storm of emotions swirling around her and promptly abandons the effort. “These people… they wouldn’t happen to call themselves the Mighty Nein?”

Her mother’s eyebrows shoot up. “How on earth—”

Keyleth can’t help the hysterical laughter that bubbles up in her throat. As she catches the slightly concerned but oh-so fond gaze directed at her, another wave of catharsis swells in her chest. 

“You’re home, Mom. You’re—you’re really—”

Strong, scarred arms wrap tightly around her again and she exhales, feeling the constant pressure of grief lessen for the first time in decades. Her mother whispers, “I would’ve waited a thousand more years to see you just once, my daughter.”

Daughter.

_ (She marvels sometimes at the sheer chaotic nature of this world and the strange way fate and luck occasionally manage to coincide in a miracle, and she marvels at the fact that she’s not alone, that her mother is home after all this time and she never forgot her, she remembers and she burns with how right it feels to collapse into someone else’s arms for once and let them take a turn holding up the world.) _

_ (She takes a moment to just be Keyleth.) _

**Author's Note:**

> hope you guys enjoyed. comments are the light of my life :)


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